About Leeds

Leeds is a city in the county of West Yorkshire, England. The city lies in the valley of the River Aire in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. The city is the largest in the county with a population of 516,298, while the larger City of Leeds metropolitan borough had a population of 793,139 (mid-2019 est.) The city is part of the West Yorkshire Built-up Area, the fourth-largest urban area in the United Kingdom with 1.7 million inhabitants.Leeds was a small manorial borough in the 13th century, becoming a major centre for the production and trading of wool in the 17th and 18th centuries, then a major mill town during the Industrial Revolution; wool was still the dominant industry, but flax, engineering, iron foundries, printing, and other industries were also important. From being a market town in the valley of the River Aire in the 16th century, Leeds expanded and overtook nearby York in importance, absorbing surrounding villages to become a populous urban centre by the 20th century, having attained City status in 1893. Leeds is well known for being the location where carbonated water was invented in the 1760s.Today, Leeds is the largest settlement of the historical Yorkshire region and known for its many shopping arcades, such as Kirkgate Market.